I thought they would have had a better career...

Early on in the season, I was thinking, "They've hit the point of diminishing returns." Then I was cracking up constantly by the end.

It's the rake joke from the Simpsons. The style of humor goes from funny to unfunny to hilarious. If you liked the original, you'll like the reboots.

 

By "Lisa Ann Plastic Surgery Package," do you mean horrible pontoon lips or Marty Feldman Boobs?

 

Those covers albums really didn't do it for me. I like Matthew Sweet, I like Susanna Hoffs, and I love the selection of songs... but they just kind of bored me. I think the problem is their voices just aren't very distinct and the arrangements were very faithful to the originals, so in the end there just wasn't much of a reason to listen. I mean, they covered "The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen. It's one of my favorite songs. It's a note for note karaoke arrangement and Ian McCulloch is twice the singer Sweet or Hoffs are.

 

Yeah, "awesome" is probably going a little too far. But their cover choices are pretty cool.

And I think when you do covers, you should either do them pretty straight (as they mostly do) or really redo them in your own style.

 

Not sure how much a career changer that was for Cruise. He already was in Risky Business and All The Right Moves. They weren't as successful as Top Gun, but shortly after he was in Color of Money. Top Gun helped him, but pretty sure he would've still been a box office star. Think it affected Modine more for not being in Top Gun.

 

Agreed. Ultimately, I think it just kind of fails for me because their voices aren't distinct enough.

The flip side of this: a guy I really like, Grant Lee Phillips, did an album of covers of 80s songs. I love his voice and had high hopes... but he turned every song into an acoustic funeral dirge. Playing them straight would have been a huge improvement.

 

The former.

 

I googled the cast for the latest wet hot American summer because I thought garafolo had been replaced. She looked extremely different.

 

How about Lisa Loeb? "Stay (I Missed You)" was a breakout hit. "Do You Sleep?" is basically a perfect pop song.

Then she was gone.

 

Pretty much all the Lilith Fair acts would fit in the category. The singer-songwriter era in the 90s gave way to the producer era. Always thought Beth Hart was pretty good and Vanessa Carlton seemed like a female Billy Joel at one time.

 

She's actually a frequent guest on a number of left-leaning podcasts and radio shows (including Sexy Liberal), where she creates anti-Trump songs off the top of her head, like some sort of lefty Mark Russell.